The Peace of God Ruling in the Heart
‘’Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” — Col. iii. 15,
In the text, when thus isolated, are these three things, —
I, The Place where power is put forth — “in your hearts.”
II. The Manner in which power is put forth there — “rule.”
III. The Power which is put forth there and thus — “the peace of God.”
To help the memory, we may call them — The Region; The Reign; The Ruler.
I. The Region: where the ruling power touches, and takes effect — ‘’in your hearts.’* “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” “The kingdom of God cometh ‘not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo, here; or lo, there: for behold the kingdom of God is within you.” “My kingdom is not of this world.” “My son, give me thine heart.”
How practical and plain-dealing is the word of God! It does not go about the bush. It makes a straiglitforward, pointed appeal. This word comes to you, brother; and it tells its errand aloud. God its author desires to have you; to have you brought into subjection, and employed in righteousness. He puts forth his hand to arrest you in your rebellion; to uplift you from the deep. He comes forth to seek and find you; to bring you back to himself, that the mansions which he has prepared may be peopled with sons and daughters. He desires to draw you with an everlasting love, and therefore he comes into your heart and fastens the cord there.
The Author of the Bible is the Maker of man. He knows our frame. He knows, he feels the measure of the force with which the carnal mind departs from the living God, and provides the power necessary to counteract and overcome it. He knows the point in the complex constitution of his creature where divine love should be applied, in order that it may have purchase and power to arrest and restore.
The heart, as it is called by a metaphor common to Scripture and the language of ordinary life, is the regulator of the whole man. It means the will and the affections, as distinguished from the intellect. It is the choosing faculty, as distinguished from the knowing faculty. It is that in man which fastens impetuously on an object loved, without waiting in all cases for a decision of the judgment whether the object is worthy.
In the regenerated man both faculties are restored to healthy action. The mind becomes capable of knowing the true, and the affections disposed to fix on the holy.
But, although in the just made perfect, these two will be equally renewed, they differ both as to order and importance during the process. Both in “the fall, and the rising again” the heart goes first, and is chief. There the disease begins, and there the remedy must be applied. By the fall, the heart has become deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; in the regeneration, the heart is made new. By sin it becomes a stony heart; through grace it becomes a heart of flesh. It is there that the fool says. No God; and there that God our Saviour dwells when the possessed has come to himself again. This heart of man is the great battle-field of the world. Satan triumphed there; and thence a Stronger casts the usurper out. The heart of the children of men is set in them to do evil; to turn it again like a river of water, and cause it to flow towards God and goodness, is the errand of Christ to earth. After his ascension the message which he sent by that apostle who had lain closest to his bosom, and who lingered longest behind in life, is, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man open, I will come in.”
It is by this heart that the attitude is determined, the path traced ont, and the impulse given. When the heart is drawn in one direction, the whole man follows. To sin, and death, and hell the man madly follows, when the heart has tasted its forbidden pleasures and leads the way; as the ox runs towards the shambles, drawn by the scent of blood on the butcher’s hands. Down tho slippery incline the heart leads the unresisting victim, although the understanding should perceive and the
2D conscience proclaim that these “steps take hold on hell.” When you endeavour to arrest a brother who is thus drawn unto death, you must get hold of him by the heart; for although you gain his judgment to the side of righteousness, the judgment has not power to reverse the movement, or even to slacken the speed. The heart’s affections, strong and foul like a river in flood, bear the victim down, and the breath of a better judgment, though it blows in the right direction, avails not to turn and save.
On this torrent we all lie; and with it we are carried impetuously down. The rush of an evil heart’s affections, like other swollen streams, will not yield to reason. When God by his word and Spirit comes to save, he saves by arresting the heart and making it new.
An engine, dragging its train on the rail, is sweeping along the landscape. As it comes near it strikes awe into the spectator. Its furious fire and smoke, its rapid whirling wheels, its mighty mass shaking the ground beneath it, and the stealthy quickness of its approach — its whole appearance and adjuncts make the observer bate his breath till it is past. What power would sufiice to arrest that giant strength? Although a hundred men should stand up before it, or seize its whirling wheels, it would cast them down, and over their mangled bodies hold on its unimpeded course, with nothing to mark the occurrence but a quiver, as it cleared the heap! But there is a certain spot in the machinery where the touch of a little child will make the monster slacken his pace, creep gently forward, stand still, slide back like a spaniel fawning under an angry word at the feet of his master.
A ship driven by fierce winds is gliding with all the momentum of great bulk and great speed forward — forward upon a sunken rock, where the gurgling breakers greedily; gloomily predict her doom. What apparatus can you bring to bear on the devoted vessel? What chain thrown around her bows will bring her to a stand? The massiest cable coming across her course will snap like a thread of tow 1 But a touch by a man’s hand on the helm will turn the huge mass sharply round, and leave it standing still upon the surface, with its empty sails flapping idly in the wind.
These great works of man laugh to scorn every effort to arrest their course by direct obstructive force; and yet they are so constructed that a gentle touch on a tender place makes all in an instant still.
This greatest work of God, more wonderful by far — this man — this self of me — moves with a greater impetus to a deeper, longer doom. Moving from birth in the direction of death, the immortal gathers momentum every hour, bursting through all the resolutions and efforts of himself and his neighbours, as Samson broke the withes that were twisted round his wrists. How Paul wept when he found that his wild heart would brook no restraint of his better judgment! I find a law in my members, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. No power in heaven or earth will arrest that downward fall, unless it be laid upon the heart. The human being is so constituted that a touch there may turn him, but nothing else will. Oh, to be arrested by the heart! Unless Jesus cast the bands of his love about that heart, as we are rushing past, there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment. Lord, grasp me there. Lord, save me, I perish. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.
When they told the blind beggar at the way-side that Jesus was passing by, he rose and ran, and cried, ‘’Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me! “My heart. Lord! arrest it; subdue it; make it new. “Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
II. The Keign: the manner in which the heart is possessed and controlled — “rule.”
The word translated “rule” in this text is very peculiar; it occurs nowhere else in Scripture. But although the word is only once employed, its meaning is neither difficult nor doubtful. It is borrowed from the practice of the Greeks at their great national games; or rather, the Greek language was formed upon Greek history, and the scriptures of the New Testament adopt the language as a vehicle to reveal God’s will. Hence, in a way altogether natural and necessary, great spiritual facts and laws are frequently expressed by words that were originally cast in the mould of Greek customs, or jurisprudence, or warfare. This word relates to the prize for which the athletes contended in the stadium. A monarch, or other chief presiding, held the prize in his hand, while the contest proceeded, and conferred it on the victor at the close. Thereby he exercised over the runners or wrestlers a peculiar kind of rule. By the display of that prize he led, he impelled them. They felt the impulse, and gave their whole being over to its sway. The word which designated the office and power of this president is the “rule” of our text.
This is different from the rule which a king exercises over his subjects, or a master over his servants. It is more pervading, more complete than theirs. In e^ery emergency men are fain to resort to it when other authorities fail. When a valuable jewel is lost, or a murderer escapes from the hand of justice, if the sense of duty and the magistrate’s command suffice not, the last resource — last, because strongest — is to offer a reward. This is a force which reaches far, and penetrates deep: it finds out the person who can do the work, and constrains him to do it. This species of rule avails to accomplish the object when other kinds have proved impotent.
This is the kind of rule which man’s Maker applies to man’s heart. By hope are ye saved; or by despair lost. ‘’There is no hope; we have followed idols, and after them will we go:” or, “There is bread enough in my Father’s house,” and love enough in my Father’s heart: “I will arise and go to my Father.” Thus were the Hebrews ruled throughout their long pilgrimage in the wilderness. The promised rest, ever displayed before their weary eyes, held them up and drew them on. Even Jesus was, in this respect, made like unto his brethren: it was for the joy that was set before him that lie endured the cross and despised the shame. It was the same species of force that generated Panl’s impetuous and persevering movement — forward, upward. That crown of glory which by faith he saw glittering already in the righteous Judge’s hand, held his heart as with a magnet’s mysterious drawing, and slackened not until his course was finished and the victory won. The long train of worthies commemorated in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where every verse is a hero’s monument, felt, too, this resistless impulse, and followed whithersoever it led. Their whole life declared aloud that they sought a city, and expected it, too, as the issue of all their sufferings — “a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Promises such as God makes, and the godly cling to, are indeed exceeding great and precious: they are the anchor of the soul which blessed hope holds by, until the soul reaches the rest that remaineth, and needs no more an anchor, because it feels no more a sea.
Be not deceived by great swelling words, or secret deceitful thoughts about being free. Freedom from rule is not competent to man; the only choice he has is a choice of masters. Every spirit here is ruled, the boldest as well as the most timid — ruled by motives swaying his heart, as a feather is borne on the wind, or a withered leaf on the bosom of a torrent. Your body is held by gravitation to the surface of the earth, and the earth is kept by gravitation moving in its orbit round the sun. In these respects we are ruled. We are absolutely helpless in the hands of matter, and its laws, and its
Lawgiver. This cord binds ns and carries ns, whether we will or not, millions of miles through space every day. Suppose one of these comets to be a vast world of fire; and suppose that it lies at a certain point in space forward many millions of miles on the earth’s orbit; suppose that the earth going forward must meet it, like the collision of two ships in the sea, and that the meeting is destruction to the earth and death to all that live on it. The wail of all mankind in the prospect will not save them. Forward! forward all must go to meet their doom! They cannot flee. Freedom of motion, indeed, we have through a little space on this planet’s surface; but the planet and all its inhabitants are, in the meantime, inexorably drawn on in a determined route, and at a determined velocity, by laws and forces absolutely beyond their control.
Now, the rule in the world of spirit is as absolute as in the world of matter: we are ruled, not rulers. There is, indeed, a liberty to choose and to refuse, — a liberty such as suits the creature, and such as the all- wise C realtor has bestowed, — it is all we have, and all we need; but it is like the liberty of moving from place to place on the earth’s surface, while the earth with us upon it follows another drawing, and obeys another law. In kind and degree the little liberty which man possesses is the very liberty that suits him best. Oh! if all were in his own power, and subject to his own will, who then should be saved? The only hope of fallen, falling spirits, lies in the will of the Infinite compassing their will about, and carrying them and theirs by a way which they know not. We have a will, and room for its exercise: we have a will; but God has one too! and his will wraps itself round us and our will, and all our world; and for his own glory and our good, binds us, and carries us whither of ourselves we would not go. Saul of Tarsus had free will, and vigorously exercised it on that journey to Damascus; but it is good for him now that another will, almighty, was thrown round him and his world that day, and carried him another way — carried the man and his will too into Christ.
III. The Ruler: the power that sways a human heart and so saves and sanctifies the man —” the jpeace of God!’
1. It is God and no idol that should rule in a human heart. Ever since the fall other lords have had dominion over it: the grand design of the gospel is to drive the intruders out, and regain the kingdom for its rightfuJ Lord.
We cannot enumerate these evil spirits which possess and rule men’s hearts; their name is legion. Some are vain, and some are vile. The devil does with us as he tried to do with the Sinless one, — shows us the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, that he may rule in our hearts thereby.
The conflict in and for the kingdom of a human heart is like that great trial between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. It is one, with God upon his side, against four hundred. It is a war in which there is no quarter on either side: if they prevail, the witness will be silenced, and God, whom he served, cast out; if he prevail, they will all be destroyed.
In the course of life there are many changes of masters — at least many changes of the guard which the god of this world sets over his prisoners. When a man, in the state of nature, passes from youth to age, he changes his master, but is still a slave: when he passes from death into life in the regeneration, he escapes from Satan’s bondage, and becomes the subject of the living God: he is never for a moment free. Formerly, he obeyed the law of sin in his members against the authority of God in his conscience; now, his heart obeys the law of God, and struggles against still indwelling sin as his foe; but first and last, then and now, he obeys. No man can serve two masters; but every man at every moment of his life serves one.
If suddenly by a miracle our eyes were opened to see spiritual things, as we now see material, what a sight would meet our eyes, what a scream would escape our lips! We would be amazed to learn who is our neighbour’s master, and ashamed to let our neighbour see who is our own. It is not to whom you say, Lord, Lord; but who really rules in your hearts.
2. But more particularly: when it is settled that God should rule supreme in the hearts of men, the question is suggested, What” special attribute or manifestation of his being and character asserts and exercises the sovereignty there?
It is not his wrath. The terrors of the Lord are great, but they do not exercise supreme sway in a human heart, and lead all its affections whithersoever they will. His anger is not a ruling, leading, drawing power. It is mighty, but not to save. It is a force that casts the wicked into hell; but not a force that can win any son of man near in willing obedience. It is not a force in that direction. The stream of the Mississippi is a great power: it floats loaded ships or fallen forests downward with great velocity to the sea; but it cannot impel one tiny boat upward to the fertile regions near its source. This is done by another and an opposite power: a breath from heaven in the sail will carry the vessel up against the stream. So with the manifested terror of the Lord against all unrighteousness of men; its power is great — greater than we can know — who knoweth the power of thine anger? — but it does not lead any one any way in the path of righteousness.
Not this, but the peace of God rules in a human heart. This is a sufficient power, acting in the right direction, and laying hold at the proper place. The power lies in the cross of Christ; and if you would see it, you must look unto Jesus. God has given his own Son to bear iniquity and make reconciliation. He gives, and delights to give, free pardon and eternal life to lost sinners for Jesus’ sake. The invitation is, “Come unto me” — “Whosoever will, let him come” — “Him that cometh, I will in no wise cast out,” and “there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” God, in the act of pardoning a sinner for his dear Son’s sake, makes an absolute separation in the man’s account between him and his sins. The pardoned man knows and says, “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity; 0 Lord, who shall stand?” But he lays himself down in peace, knowing that God has marked his sins to the Saviour, and the Saviour’s righteousness to him. Sin is taken away, and wrath. There is now no condemnation; there is peace. This is the greatest thing for man. For you and me to-day, the greatest thing is to be pardoned and reconciled. Peace with God; if I have that, I may want anything — all things.
But this peace as a ruling power — what effect does it produce? It is an old fear, and has continued till this day, that to set a man so free will encourage him in evil. Will this simple, instant, free, complete pardon of sin by God, not make sin seem a light thing to the man! No; nothing makes sin appear so sinful as its pardon through Christ crucified. The objection is an honest one, but it is not well founded. A blind man may honestly say the day is dark, or a foreigner say your language is obscure, when the day is bright and the words transparent; but they know no better. God’s peace, — his pardon, holds a heart from sin, and rules it in holiness. The effects which this peace is expected to produce, as is largely indicated in the context, are the common virtues of the Christian life, with love as usual for their climax and crown. The bond is not visible to the natural eye, but it is not therefore feeble: even in nature, the bonds that are invisible and intangible are surest, and strongest, and most enduring.
If you had been present when the Creator framed these worlds, and set them in motion, you would have trembled for the consequences when you saw him launch this globe from his hand with such freedom and force into infinite space. You would have thought, It will fall away, and away for ever, into darkness — into “the blackness of darkness for ever.” You see no bond holding it, and therefore you think it will burst away uncontrolled; but the law of its Maker unseen compasses this world about, and holds it in. It is far more effectively restrained than if material chains had been thrown around it. Softly, invisibly, but most perfectly, is the heavy ball held, and ruled, and led by a law of God, and made meeldy to do its Maker’s bidding.
Thus a sinner pardoned is thrown off free. All his sins are forgiven. God retains no account against him. He is severed from all the past; and nothing taken thence can now be put in his indictment. The pardoned is pardoned wholly, pardoned freely, pardoned for ever. There is now no condemnation. The Son has made him free; he is free indeed. But the very hand that freed him still holds him bound. Nay, though it seem a paradox, it is a great and sober truth, — to bind him, sets him loose; to free him, holds him bound. Those who are still bound over to the judgment by the law’s inexorable grasp on an unclean conscience, are loose in life, run riot in wickedness. “There is no hope; We have loved idols, and after them will we go.” It is the act of setting him free that hinds him. There are many glorious paradoxes in the gospel. “When I am weak, then am I strong,” is one: when I am set free, then am I hound fast, is another.
Our English word ohlige may help to explain somewhat the mystery. Its literal meaning is, tied to: by such and such a gift you will ohlige me; that is, you will tie me to you. I was in your debt: I had by my own fault incurred the debt: you held the bond against me: you held me bound, and could any day have cast me into prison: you cancel all freely: you blot out that handwriting which was against me, by which you held me: you cut it through: you let me clean go. What then? Then and thereby, if there be one spark of truth or generosity in my being, you have bound me to yourself. By setting me free, you have bound me fast; you have bound me by my heart. The bond is invisible; but it holds a soul, — it rules a life. Love is the cord of a man; other cords will hold a brute, but in this only can a human soul be held.
Such, although purer in nature and infinite in degree, — such is God’s method in the gospel, of seizing, and binding, and ruling a human heart. It is his peace that rules; it is his act of letting me go free that binds my whole soul for ever. Other bonds will wear out or break; but this is a heavenly, godly thing. This chain will not rust. Love is an everlasting thing, for God is love.
To a woman who had been caught in the flagrant act of sin, and brought before him for judgment, Jesus said, without question or stipulation, “Neither do I condemn thee; go.’’ But what will become of the interests of morality, if you fling criminals off” forgiven, making no preliminary condition, and taking no security for the future? Fea;r not; the interests of morality are safest in. the hands of the Holy One. His free pardon holds the pardoned by the heart. In letting the sinner off, he holds the sinner still: “Go, and sin no more.” Pardon, so bestowed, begets love; and love fulfils the Forgiver’s law.
Free pardon is the only ruling power: either God rules you by that, or you abide his enemy. A forgiven soul is like this earth in space — set absolutely free, and yet held all and held always in constant, complete submission. Oh, to be forgiven! Let go! Then and thereby would I be held. If the peace of God in Christ Jesus go about my heart and rule me, I shall neither go away from him in the course of life, nor be cast away from him in the judgment.